Comments like this one show just how F'd Desperate Homedebtors are

God, I love comments from Desperate Homedebtors stuck in denial and debt who think they're going to get bailed out by the government.

One unintended effect of the Bush/Paulson "bailout" announcement is that it got a lot of people's hopes up, like this one.

Oh, won't they be surprised to find out.

Dear HP'ers:

You guys are a bunch of losers. You folks actually want America to enter into a depression. Well losers, keep buying more gold, silver, canned foods and fresh water. Keep thinking the world will end. Stay in your maman's basement.

I bought a house I could not afford with an exotic mortgage. My property increased dramatically and I took cash out. Now times are tough and guess what? I will be bailed out while you still hope for the impending financial crash/depression. So who has had the last laugh? You or me? I lived beyond my means and still get rewarded while suckers like you don't.

Work with me people!

Depending on your role in this housing debacle, I think we see a bit of denial still (shockingly), a lot of fear (homebuilders, lenders, realtors), some desperation (foreclosures, bankruptcies) and the first scenes of true panic (Northern Rock savers, Fannie Mae investors)

But where would you say the majority of Americans are today?

It's been illuminating to follow this chart these past few years. It simply showed us when it came to the Housing Ponzi Scheme what was happening, and what was to come, no matter what realtors on commission wanted you to believe.

People ask me all the time "when will it be safe to buy a house again"?

The answer? When the majority are disgusted by real estate as an investment. When there's true capitulation and despondency. And of course, when you can buy a home and rent it out for positive cash flow. We're still not even close.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Black Monday - the great 1987 stock market crash. How will you celebrate?

Remember it like it was yesterday...

Nice thing about a good crash is that people do remember it (for awhile) and don't do such stupid things.

You know, like lending trillions to people who had no chance of ever paying it back. You know, like buying an apartment in Phoenix for $1 million. You know, like having no oversight of mortgage brokers and realtors as they conned America. You know, like doing massive insider stock sales (while having their company buy back stock).

Happy 20th Anniversary, Mr. Stock Market Crash. How's today's market lookin' to ya?

After '87, today's fear is the mini-crash

20 years after the Dow plunged 22% in a day, Wall Streeters aren't too worried about a repeat. But what about a smaller version of that disaster?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A lot of Wall Streeters are reminiscing this week about where they were during the 1987 crash. The more recent tumult - in 2001 and even earlier this year - gets lost in the chatter.

The combination of circuit breakers instituted by the NYSE, and the Federal Reserve's willingness to intervene, means a crash on the level of Oct. 19, 1987 - in which the Dow plunged 22.6 percent on a 508-point loss - probably won't happen again.

But that doesn't mean the market won't - and hasn't already - experienced severe mini-crashes that crush investors and roil the markets for days or even weeks at a time.

When it comes to the Great Housing Crash and Mortgage Meltdown, without question, the United States has now moved to HousingFEAR stage

How do we know? Because we can look back on the lazy days of Denial as if it were a million years ago.

Simpler times, yes they were. Ignorant realtors were calling HP'ers "chicken littles" and "brown shirts". Sheeple were still out buying homes thinking they were appreciating. David Lereah and the NAR were putting out numbers without anyone laughing. Crisp and Cole weren't yet under FBI investigation. 61,000 Countrywide employees thought they had stable jobs.

Ah, but those days of Denial are over. Fear is here. And there's even a sprinkling of HousingDESPERATION in the air. And then, as we all know and expect, HousingPANIC. It hath been foretold.

Come on! Work with me people! Fear has to be here by now, eh? Let's get this crash over already and move on.

As the CEPR pointed out in their housing crash report the other day, Americans will be best off if we get this housing crash over quickly, versus the 10+ years Japan wasted.

If home prices are simply "Marked to Market", the old prices and expectations thrown away, then we could move on.

Home would start selling again. Builders could eventually start building again. Losses would be known, retirees would be able to prepare, new home buyers wouldn't go bankrupt, and existing home debtors wouldn't go out spending money they don't really have.

Or we can do this the long and painful way.

So work with me, people of America. Your home isn't worth anywhere near what it would have sold for in 2005. The funny money days are over. "Liar's Loans" are no more. Housing speculation is dead for a generation. The Ponzi Scheme is over.

And your house is worth what it was in 2000, at best.

Now deal with it.

Here's the thinking from the CEPR on this:

It is worth noting that from the standpoint of current homeowners and prospective homebuyers a quick unraveling is more desirable than a gradual one, even if the macroeconomic consequences may be more severe.

If a homeowner has a house that will lose a substantial portion of its value over the near future, then she will be better situated to deal with this loss of wealth if it happens sooner rather than if it is delayed for a substantial period of time.

For example, if the homeowner is preparing for retirement, she would benefit from knowing sooner rather than later how much equity she can actually expect to have accumulated from her house. This would allow her to plan her savings, and possibly her retirement decision based on her actual wealth rather than wealth that is only a bubble illusion.

Our official HP troll ("DOPES") is quite possibly one of the dumbest people on the planet. What advice would you offer him?

Definitely my favorite troll of all time. The cluelessness, the naivete, it just oozes from his comments. Five stars!

Seriously, though, what advice do you have for DOPES!

Have at it...

And today was the day when denial ended, and fear set in

Yes, many Americans are so dumb they could sit on an OJ Simpson jury, but for those of us who know that the TV comes with an off button, and who make an effort to follow and understand the news, today was the day HP'ers.

Today was the day.

And Fear is now here.

Thank you Countrywide for showing us the way.

Donna Summer, take us out...

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

What's the reaction when you show HousingPANIC to someone?

1) Raging hostility

2) Anger

3) Rejection

4) Acceptance

5) Joy

6) Love

????

Believe it or not, even when I tell people about HP and what was coming (or now, what is going on and what's going to happen) in the US and UK, many choose to ignore the info and advice, and many outright reject it.

But others have listened, got themselves prepared, and feel like they knew a dirty little secret.

Oh well, you can only help people who want to be helped.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Is it possible that some folks will never leave the Denial stage, even as housing prices continue to plummet, inventory continues to swell and demand continues to crater?

And what stage do you think the majority of these groups are in today:

1) Realtors

2) Homedebtors

3) Home builders

4) Illegal Mexican laborers

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Does it smell like housing crash fear yet in your town?

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

Gotta be Fear by now, eh? I know people are dumb, but they can't be THAT dumb, can they?

Wow. Where do we even start. The Great Housing and Credit Crash is Here

Five days away and it feels like five years. Everything has become so clear now, so horrifically clear. We are now firmly, securely and undoubtedly in total and complete meltdown mode.

Historic, devastating meltdown mode.

The MSM still hasn't quite caught up - they're still talking about the now-obvious subprime meltdown. Some of the smarter folks in the room though are saying what's the next big problem - the Alt-A (liars loan) implosion, and the overall impact of this credit unwinding on home prices.

I see Merrill predicting a 10% decline in home prices now this year, and I read waaaayy too many stories on the plane about the house of cards falling in, how subprime's implosion will mean even fewer buyers, taking prices down even faster, causing more loans to go bad, causing prices to fall even faster, causing more loans to go bad... Well, add millions of loans that investors thought were much safer - the Alt-A pool, and that bonfire burns even hotter.

Folks, even the Greg Swann's, Bob Toll's and Ben Bernanke's of the world are going to have a tough time staying in denial or liar-mode now. This game is over. The Housing Ponzi Scheme has been exposed, the Great Unwinding is underway, and the panicked rush for the exits is here.

What you are witnessing, and what you will witness, will truly be historic. Never before has such a great financial bubble arisen, propped up by such a staggering amount of leverage. The size, scope, reach and depth of the collapse will shock the world.

But not HP'ers. We saw it all coming. All of it.

And I hope you're all ready.

HousingPANIC Stupid Question of the Day

"Bull Trap" dead ahead?

Stop denying Denial. It's Fear my friends. Fear.

HSBC moved $10 billion from the "denial" column straight to "capitulation" the other day.

The entire subprime industry, which fell off a cliff in the past few weeks, went from "euphoria" to "despondency" overnight it seems. And the contagion will spread. It always does during a the mania unwinding stage.

1.9 million American homes currently listed in foreclosure are in "desperation" stage.

2.2 million Americans who took out toxic loans and are expected to default, well, they've gotta be in "fear" stage now if they're paying attention.

Millions of REIC employees / contractors / commission hungry sharks are in "fear" stage today, wondering when the axe will fall, and how long they'll have to eat ramen.

The 2.1 million homedebtors with an empty home on the market and no buyers in sight have gotta be in some stage of "fear", "desperation" and yes, "panic" today.

One would-be real estate mogul who is now selling off his portfolio of failure and days away from bankruptcy and a knock from the FBI, well, even he's evidently moving past denial lately.

HP'ers, you'd have to be insane, clueless, corrupt, stupid and seriously the greatest fool on earth if you're still in "euphoria" or "anxiety" stage. Man, the train left the station, a long, long time ago. When will Americans (and the world) finally get on board? Or are they?

FLASH: Housing starts plunge 14.3% to 10-year low - New home construction down 37.8% year-on-year

Millions will go unemployed during this REIC downturn. Just like the telecom implosion in 2000, way too much capacity, way too little demand.

The unemployment will only make the housing ponzi scheme unraveling even worse.

Panic is knocking. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Can you hear it? You should.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. home builders started the fewest homes in nearly a decade in January, as housing starts plunged 14.3% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.408 million, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

It's the lowest rate for starts since August 1997. Housing starts were down 37.8% compared with January 2006.

The starts figure was much lower than expected on Wall Street, where economists were looking for a 2% drop to 1.60 million annualized units. The permits figure was close to the 1.58 million expected by median forecast in the MarketWatch survey of economists.

The stunning drop in home building indicates that builders are scaling back their plans on a massive scale to work down the excess inventory of unsold homes on the market. Hopes that a bottom in the housing market has been reached will have to be re-evaluated

Starts of single-family homes dropped 11.2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.108 million, the lowest since August 1997. Permits for single-family homes fell 4% to 1.121 million, the lowest since December 1997.

Two weeks ago, the Commerce Department reported that the number of vacant homes increased by 34% in 2006 to 2.1 million at the end of the year, nearly double the long-term vacancy rate. Economists said there are 1 million excess homes.

Whiny realtor writes letter to editor complaining about media coverage. HP'er then puts her in her place. Gotta love it!

It's times like these when I couldn't be more proud to be an HP'er:

Here's the standard whiny real estate clerk letter in the Las Vegas Journal (which I thought for sure was meant as an ironic joke, but alas, it was not, it's the real estate clerk who is the joke):

LETTERS: Spare us bad news about housing market

To the editor:

OK, by now even the most casual observer is aware that the Las Vegas real estate market is not doing well. We have been bombarded by your newspaper, network news, and the Internet telling us over and over again how bad things are.

It seems as if almost every day you run an article predicting the percentage that the market will decline and quoting the same experts (over and over) with their personal opinions (which is all they are -- no one has a crystal ball).

Enough already. The sellers know the market is tough, and it is very depressing for them to see article after article about how bad things are and how much worse things may get. Prospective buyers who read your articles predicting a "possible 5 percent to 10 percent decline" in prices are smart enough to figure out that maybe they should wait to purchase.

You keep saying the average home price is around $300,000. If I were a prospective buyer and saw that a 10 percent decline was expected this year, I would wait a year to buy and save $30,000.

Perhaps all the negative news and press is partially responsible for prolonging this real estate decline. You are creating a surge of "fence sitters" when you predict to buyers that more money can be saved if they wait. If you could you just refrain from running an article every day about the dismal market, maybe things could turn around.

Las Vegas is a great place to live. Let's focus on the positive.

Karen Newkirk
LAS VEGAS - THE WRITER IS LOCAL REALTOR.


And Here's HP'er John's response which they then published:


LETTERS: Slow housing market not all bad

To the editor:

In response to Karen Newkirk's Tuesday letter, "Spare us bad news about housing market".

Ms. Newkirk, a Realtor, believes that accurate reporting by local and national newspapers is somehow causing the bursting of the housing bubble. Apparently, when one's commission checks are affected, it is time to find a scapegoat.

She should realize that inventory increased, home sales slowed down, and prices fell because of other factors, such as: too many speculators in the market, the lowering of lending standards, foreclosures, developer overbuilding and -- most importantly -- affordability. The average person no longer can afford the average house. Something has to give, and I doubt that wages will be greatly increased.

When Las Vegas house prices were appreciating by 10 percent to 20 percent each year, and this was reported by the newspaper, did Ms. Newkirk write to complain that the reporting of price increases was fueling even higher prices, and thus eliminating many potential buyers who only want affordable housing?

Reduced prices will give more people an opportunity to own a home, and for them that would make Las Vegas a great place to live.

John Hildahl